Shameless Plugs

So we should not be very surprised at all when EA’s Origin (like a Steam thingy) was discovered to have an extreme invasion of privacy clause in its EULA. Some folks over at The Escapist happened to spot the following legal blurb in the End User Agreement (you know, those things that nobody ever reads):

2. Consent to Collection and Use of Data.You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online services. EA may also use this information combined with personal information for marketing purposes and to improve our products and services. We may also share that data with our third party service providers in a form that does not personally identify you. IF YOU DO NOT WANT EA TO COLLECT, USE, STORE, TRANSMIT OR DISPLAY THE DATA DESCRIBED IN THIS SECTION, PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE APPLICATION. This and all other data provided to EA and/or collected by EA in connection with your installation and use of this Application is collected, used, stored and transmitted in accordance with EA’s Privacy Policy located at www.ea.com. To the extent that anything in this section conflicts with the terms of EA’s Privacy Policy, the terms of the Privacy Policy shall control.

What does this mean? Well, it’s probably the single most intrusive software agreement you could ever possibly agree to using. It gives EA full access to everything you do on your computer, such as what hardware or peripherals you install, what software you install, AND WHAT YOU DO WITH THAT SOFTWARE. But wait! There’s MORE! Not only do they use this information to “improve the quality of your gaming experiences”, they WILL also SELL your information to 3rd party vendors. It’s absolutely amazing that they thought they could get away with this! There’s a word for what this is… SPYWARE! In no bizarre alternate universe is this at all ethical.

Now, many people say “oh, Steam does the same thing”, but I’ve read the Steam agreement, it says they only collect data from their games for their purpose. True, they could be lieing, but ya know, at face value, it’s not the same as Origin. It’s one thing to collect data about YOUR games for YOUR own purposes, but it’s another thing to collect ALL data about your users and habits and SELL that information with others.

Actually, if I went out, rummaged through peoples trash, their computer, their receipts, their activities… it would be called stalking! Which, if I understand the law correctly, is pretty darn illegal. “But Shawn, it says very clearly, when you install the game, you give your full consent” yes, while this is true, that does not mean it’s right. Many contracts you sign have a stipulation that states something to the effect of “if this agreement conflicts with local, state, or national laws, those laws will take precedence and the ones in the contract are null and void.” So, if I sign a contract that says the contractor may kill me should I not play at least 20 hours of PacMan a week, then that does not give the contractor the right to murder the contractee. Does that make sense? Just because it’s in a contract, doesn’t make it absolutely binding. Well, in a perfect world that’s how it would work…

However, there’s a rub… the companies have been fighting this reasoning for years, stating that it’s in the contract and thus, legal. Though there have been action taken against contracts that have this “stalking agreement” hidden in legal jargon or lengthy documents, but I’m not sure this has really helped curb the unethical activities of companies like EA. And yes, I’m calling them out. EA not only treats its customers like thieves with its DRM coupons to prevent used game sales, but now this? (but that drm thing will be another comic for another day)

Anyways, the only way to really combat this is to NOT INSTALL THE GAMES! Don’t buy it! Don’t buy any Origin games or content. Do not install it at all. Just get Steam and be happy with the lesser evil. That, or find way of suppressing that bit of programming… Maybe something like Spybot. Though I’m sure some programmer type will figure a way to keep us safe.

If you really REALLY want to combat it. Write your congressperson, tell them how you feel about contracted cyber stalking! If we rise up as a national voice (and even global) and express our anger, then maybe we can shape our own future. We CAN change laws. They are there to protect the people. These gaming companies (Electronic Arts) are using gaps in the legal system to exploit you. You should be pissed! So lets fight back!

well… from its beginnings, it’s shifted from buying games to buying licenses. it’s also happening in the movies and music industry as well.

I think what’s going to happen, within probably the next 20yrs (to be generous) we will see less emphasis on physical media. meaning, you’ll have more “cloud” gaming, or streamed gaming, or even simply downloading the games. this will make it clearly defined as a “license to play” rather than a “right” to play your purchase. I see in the future, you will not ever own media, you will only buy the rights to use it, briefly even.

another game actually expires your license if not played for X time (I totally forget which game it was, sorry).

I actually do and don’t like the idea of this… I have an idea actually on how they can fix all the problems using a token system, but the execs might not go for it. but folks, at some point, we’re going to have to rebel against media companies when they treat US like commodities and not their products. not sure what the last straw will be, but probably something to the effect of widespread “temporary licenses” where after a year, your $60 game just vanishes. I don’t see that going over very well with us consumers. and probably before then, we’ll all just own GameFly accounts anyways. exciting times! lets see how this plays out!

Love your comics. Long time reader first time poster. :) Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in there… The main problem with these types of clauses is that the “Just don’t intall the game” attitude doesn’t really work. The reason is that by the time you’re reading the EULA (if, by some miracle, you are bored enough to do so) you’ve already bought the game! You’ve already paid your $60 and you’re reading the EULA when you’re trying to install the thing. If you don’t install it, then you just threw away $60, because no gaming store, online or otherwise, will take your game back once the seal was broken on the box.

And I don’t know if there’s any way to find these things beforehand, unless there’s a big scandal about it (and if you are in the habit of reading gaming news). But by then you’ve probably aready bought the damn thing.

Also, the level of invasion a gamer will allow in their computer is very debatable. One example is World of Warcraft. There has been a lot of controversy with Warden, their anti-cheat system, which is basically a small scanning program that gets installed along with the game. As long as the game is running, Warden checks to see what other programs are running at the same time, in order to scan for known hack programs that interfere with the gameplay. At first, when this was made news, many people started getting scandalized, but the WoW gaming community itself largely accepted and maybe even welcomed Warden (I know I did). This was simply because the effect of those hack programs created such a nuisance on the overall gameplay of the average player that most accepted to be “spied upon” as long as the hackers were kept at bay. I must specify that Warden does not store, use or sell the information that it gathers from programs that are not on it’s hack list. So, to be honest, it’s a pretty good trade.

Also, on the licence point you raised in your comment, WoW is one example of the licenced game. It’s clearly stated that you do not own the game. You do not own the client, or anything related to it. You are simply paying in order to be able to use it. Although, I honestly think that Blizzard did this in order to more efficiently deal with the aforementioned hackers. If they modify the game client, they can’t simply say “It’s my game, I can do whatever I want with it!” and disrupt the gameplay of lots of other people. It’s also easier for Blizzard to ban people (from the legal point of view). I must mention that Blizzard GMs have always been reasonable when it came to bans, so this measure does not really affect the average honest player.

I gave WoW as an example of how such “invasive” technology can be reasonably used with the consent and blessing of the majority of the playerbase. I do believe that Blizzard is one of the more “ethical” companies out there, but it is true that the line is very easily crossed. However, not all is bad. :)

I agree 110%!!! That’s actually one of my big issues, is that they already got their money… seriously, no other commodity does this! Who would give someone money before signing the contract? I think you can read their EULA/TOS online, but that’s not an excuse… you don’t buy a car if the only contract you can see is online.

Well, in the case of hackers/cheaters, I guess I’m ok with a “listening” program. I’ve been in games where it just ruined everything! But then again, like you said, if it isn’t transmitting info, then it’s not overly intrusive.

True, I think you’re right about the hackers here. I can see it working in this sense. Multiplayer games are kind of a separate animal I suppose… cause you can’t just have people giving themselves missile launchers and such. AND when you buy the game, it goes towards YOUR account… so it can’t just be transferred as a “used” game. I’m ok with that, but when you slap that onto, say, Sonic 4 or Halo or whatever, then it’s just not cool. I can buy and sell my movies, why not my games?

Yes, and I think the folks at Blizz take great care in balancing their legal terms to make sure it keeps people secure while not infringing too much on their privacy, so that was a very good example! Odd that Blizz is an “ethical” example, since it owns all of our souls… sigh… I’m frothing at the bit to get Diablo 3! lol!!! But yeah, it can be done that can benefit everybody, so there’s no reason for any of this shady stuff!

Speaking of, I just updated my browser’s flash and whatnot and Adobe thought it was ok to install, without consent, a bunch of Google applications. I’m NOT ok with this! Oh, and I pulled that Pando Media Blaster (which has been known to have spyware) off because lots of those F2P games install it. It’s just not right!

PS… no probs! always glad to hear other peoples’ thoughts. and if you’ve been following my posts, you’ll know I’m no stranger to walls of text! you know the rules… and so do I… >)

I solved this dilemma years ago – i just don’t buy games at all.
I pirate them , i get the best of the game without all those shitty plug-ins for my browser, no agents, statistical information collected and so on. You download a game , copy crack into main folder – play the damn game. After you are done with it – delete it (keeping saves for future) and thats that!

well, I wouldn’t advocate just taking things, but it’s absolutely understandable that people would resort to piracy because of the way media distribution companies treat their customers.

I think a happy middle ground is something to the extent of the micropayment (itunes or movies on demand) or rental services such as NetFlix. Though I think the arguments would be “how much of the pie gets served to the actual artists and workers, not the distro companies”, which if you’ve read up on itunes, you’d find it’s a very tiny slice.

Or maybe if they commercialtize (it’s a word! maybe…) movies and offer them free on the studio’s website… so you’ve got to watch the sponsors’ commercials periodically throughout the movie. like Hulu. I think this model solves LOADS of problems and provides revenue for the production studio.

I’m in the middle ground on this. I pirate some software (usually old games that I don’t want to buy on ebay b/c ebay sells are notoriously sucky) and I also buy a lot of games as well. I do pay for 2 WoW accounts and I’m also looking forward to Diablo 3.

The Issue I see here is that (most) companies will do whatever they can get away with. If people say “I’m not doing anything wrong with my computer so it’s ok for them to record this” then they will. People over the last 10 years have thrown away more and more freedom in exchange for “safety” to the point where we might as well have a electronic leash shoved up our #&@. I want people to be upset with this, to change laws and protest, but they won’t. Apathy is a plague upon gamers and society in general, and only in the face of massive, obvious, deplorable injustice do people even CONSIDER doing anything to stop it.
The idea that since people shouldn’t be doing anything wrong anyway it’s ok to have any and all information on them available for public knowledge is a travesty against what america (and most of the free countries of the world) were founded on.
Groups are fighting back Coffinshaker. Anonymous was formed b/c hackers and gamers were sick to death of what they saw happening to their world. They said no more and they weren’t afraid. That doesn’t mean that all of them couldn’t end up striped of american rights and put in a cell with no due process or contact with the outside world (thank you Patriot act) but it does mean that someone is starting to see (like yourself) that things are heading down a bad road.
The only saving grace to the electronic world is that there is no military force or police force that can control it with fear. It is controlled by the people with the most brain power, and they rarely want to work for EA anti-privicy Division. There will always be a hack or fix or block to all of these programs. It’s sad that laws and government no longer protect the people from the evil of the world, but the outlaws protect the people from the governments apathy and corporate greed.

sadly Medros… SWTOR is a… gasp… EA game! and I’ll probably have to bite the bullet and pony up the cash for it. but rest assured a piece of my soul will die that day.

anywho, you’re right on here. people have become way too accepting of their freedoms leeched away over the years. when will it stop and to what end? will we start having problems when they install cameras in our homes? why should we not let them if we aren’t doing anything illegal? (man I hate that reasoning with such a passion!)

hopefully we’ll put up a little fight before they just make a robotic micromanager for every person that monitors their every action. but I guess if they gave them a little outfit with suspenders and said “yeaaaah… about thaaaat” all the time, I guess it wouldn’t be soooo bad. >)

There’s a program I use called EULAlyzer, which scans through EULA’s and finds questionable content for you. That way you don’t actually need to read the 1,000 page EULA’s. It’s not perfect, but it did highlight spyware related activity in several programs I’ve downloaded (Download Accelerator Plus being one of them, which has 78 million downloads on cnet alone), so it’s a good program in my opinion.

I wouldn’t be surprised if EULAlyzer played a part in finding that content in EA’s EULA; but of course there are some people who actually read them too.